Steemit Gaming Contest: Lesson in pride

This story starts with 5 diehard grizzled veterans who fought a thousand campaigns, battled countless adversaries in unimaginable circumstances. Their skills honed razor sharp from the decades of battle in the crucible of combat. Unyielding in the face of opposition and always in the ruthless pursuit of righteous victory....

....and one random matchmaking noob...ugh!

The fog of war is thick in this story, it happened around Call of Duty Modern warfare or MW2 times but at a certain point all the bodies become a blur. To set the scene, our clan, clan HERO (all caps:) had 5 players in, so in matchmaking it gave us one random person. Anyone who has played a lot knows random teammates are the worst when you are trying to win. We had just played against another clan of 6 teammates in a very close fight which we had barely won. Now normally I don’t brag but this is gaming so it’s important unlike food/water/shelter, but we were damn good so a close game was very rare.

When that match finished we were in the lobby and they instantly got on mics and started challenging us again and some smack talk ensued, after they challenged us again we said things like "We already had our way with you" and "The same thing is going to happen because you’re not in our league, etc." but deep down we knew it was a tough battle and a great challenge but in gaming etiquette you can never show you really respect your opponent. To do so would constitute a lack of respect.

The match starts and it’s another close nail biter going back and forth on sort of an awkward map. Clan HERO is hard charging noncamping lords of war so we run into hailstorms of bullets with the expectation of making miracles happen. Now because we got saddled with our one random noob we would sort of take turns watching over him in whatever ill thought out action he was taking, trying to kill the enemy we knew was there but he didn’t. The worst enemy is the enemy within.

The game timer is ticking out and we aren’t going to reach the kill limit and we are behind a few kills. I don’t know which teammate did it but because I am the best on our team I will assume it’s me :) got 2 well executed kills in a tough spot outside of this church. Because of how we spawned awkwardly we were all pinned in the church with less than a minute remaining. There were only 2 entrances/exits. The backside was guarded by their teams top notch sniper and the front by a few of them.

We had snagged the lead and once we saw all of us inside we called out to stay in here for the remaining minute and make them come to us since they had been camping the whole game. We had the lead so if they want it, come get it. Now the 5 clan HERO members of course quickly take up positions to guard the doors and know exactly what to do.....but there is a noob with us, a random matchmaking noob...

We tell the noob to not go running out into the street or we will shoot him ourselves. In this version of COD (in hardcore mode) you could kill your teammates. You are allowed 3 team kills before you are booted from the game. What did he do? He bolted for the backdoor which was guarded by their best sniper. I warned him as he was running towards it then right as he is about to get in the snipers view I put one in his back! Orders are important to be followed when playing in clan HERO you see. :) Again he spawns and wants to run out and another teammate shoots him. Then as soon as he spawns another teammate shoots him before he even has time to move.

The game ends and we win because the other team was too scared to try and come at us to get victory, something clan HERO would never be scared of! We never mentioned where we are from or talked about anything besides the actual game this whole time, but now the random noob gets on the mic and says something to the effect of "damn you Americans" and "wanting to win". We cracked up laughing because we have no idea how he even knew we were Americans and it wasn’t brought up at all so it just came out of left field.

A little tear welled up in my eye and in that moment I learned what it was to be a proud American!

I wrote this because @deadspace had a writing contest based on gaming here!